coys25
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I think he’ll play like normal. It would be pretty insane to pass up the Bayern offers and then sit Kane for the year. That would (a) guarantee that he leaves next year, eliminating any small hope that he stays, and (b) mean that you’re getting no value for Kane while also getting none of the reward that you would have gotten by selling him now.
I am guessing it’s in the range of £100-125m. Bayern seem to have overplayed their hand a bit, thinking that Levy would feel the need to sell regardless of price, and coming in with multiple bids under the asking price. I wouldn’t be shocked if they blink and pay up, but it seems like Levy may be content to keep him. If he goes for free next year, it’s a lot of potential revenue lost, but Spurs are in fine financial shape (it’s not a Barca situation). And Levy seems to think that there’s some small chance that he stays & signs a new contract, if the year with Ange goes well and he likes the direction of the team. Seems remote to me unless Spurs win the league or something absurd like that happens.
Up the Bridges!
But yes, I think that there may also be issues with the college eligibility of players if the league were a mix of professional and pre-professional players (?). I can’t imagine how it would work to include USL2. Though I think that Ballard FC could certainly generate the fan support needed. Would probably need to move out of Interbay, though …
Edit: I can see posts in Dutch on that community (my languages on lemmy.world are set to Undefined, English, and Spanish). Using Liftoff though I don’t think that that matters.
You can use [email protected] as an alternative way to link the community, I think. On Liftoff your link takes me to the web version, where I’m not logged in since my account is on lemmy.world. But I think that the version with exclamation points will link directly and keep users logged in, etc.
The Athletic is reporting that Jordi Alba won’t take up one of the DP slots:
Messi and Busquets will occupy two of the club’s three DP spots. Leoandro Campana or Rodolfo Pizarro will occupy the third.
Inter Miami actually had three DPs already before the Messi deal was announced: Gregore, Rodolfo Pizarro and Leonardo Campana. Inter Miami also has a history of salary cap violations and being fined for paying players outside of the cap (they were functionally carrying 4 DPs by compensating Blaise Matuidi without reporting it). With that said, there have been a number of head-scratching moves in MLS historically where players have seemingly signed for much less than their value (see Gareth Bale to LAFC), and the arrangents for these contracts are not very transparent.
For Miami, It seems like it will probably need to be some combination of moving their existing DPs and using accounting mechanisms to reclassify existing DPs. MLS has a complicated “allocation money” system wherein teams receive general allocation money (GAM) and targeted allocation money (TAM). This money can be traded, eg in return for additional international spots or players, and Inter Miami has accumulated a good bit over the last several years. (Their sporting director, Chris Henderson, used to work for the Sounders and is very good at his job).
Miami can use this allocation money to buy down the cap hit of players so that they are no longer DP players, but instead are “TAM-level” players (players who make more than the maximum salary for non-DP players under salary cap rules, but less than a DP - they can be paid with targeted allocation money). That would free up a DP slot.
My guess is that Miami will probably use allocation money to move Gregore to a TAM position, as he has the lowest salary of their current DPs. They may try to trade Campana and/or buy out Pizarro (who doesn’t have much time left on his contract) to free up the other. Then the three DPs are Messi, Busquets, and Campana/Pizarro. A Miami fan may have a better idea. The Athletic also had a good rundown.
How are they getting Alba on a non-DP contract? I have no idea. With that said, my guess is that MLS is very willing to get creative with some of the rule interpret to make this Miami-Barcelona reunion happen, and because of the single entity nature of the league most other teams (and many of us fans) won’t really care.
To add on, MLS is even more league-centric than other American sports leagues. Many other leagues in the States utilize salary caps and luxury taxes along with other mechanisms to try to maintain parity and competitive balance.
MLS, however, operates under a single entity model. As per Wikipedia:
Major League Soccer owners own a share in the league and are granted right to operate a team. Major League Soccer (MLS) operates under a single-entity structure in which teams and player contracts are centrally owned by the league.Each MLS team has an investor-operator that is a shareholder in the league.In order to control costs, the league shares revenues and holds players contracts instead of players contracting with individual teams.
So this sort of structure definitely incentivizes stuff like setting aside all sorts of existing rules to let Messi and his buddies team up. A rising tide lifts all boats and whatnot. As an MLS fan (Sounders), I have to say that I’m actually ok with it - if it grows the league and the sport in our country, so much the better!
(Also I think that Miami is still going to struggle even with this new core, but we’ll see!)
Yeah, even though slow motion makes it look worse, I was shocked that it wasn’t given in real time. But the commentary team was convinced that it was just a natural body position. I continue to have no idea what constitutes a handball in the box.